Nothing On My Tongue - The Outtakes
by riveroad
Summary: Where Spike and Winnie spend a little less time going on PG-13 dates and a little more time doing other things.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Nothing On My Tongue - The Outtakes. There's an incredibly off-colour joke somewhere in here, which I'm sure you can see and I won't beat you over the head with. Takes place right at the end of chapter 12.

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So, it's possible that the way he kisses her? Yeah, that wild swoop in her stomach and how it leaves her breathless and how she never wants to _stop_, is just not going away.

She's tried chalking it up to how new it all is but also, she can't stop thinking about all that stuff, how things are more serious because they were already friends and already sort of close and mostly, Winnie spends half the time they're together completely caught up in him and the other half terrified of something she can't put her finger on.

It's just-fucking Dahlia was right, there's a lot more pressure here when she thinks about all the ways this could go wrong, all the ways it could end. And it _is_ more serious, even though they've only been out a few times (and she has been out with other guys before, it's just - it's not _like this_)_. _It's not bad, it's just surprising, the way he waits for her after work, how he calls her first thing on their days off, wants to see her every day.

Even so, she keeps insisting on running back to her apartment after shift, even when he rolls his eyes at her, tells her that he's going to come and pick her up anyway or that they'll end up meeting up somewhere in the middle of their two places but he lets it go and it's just, she just doesn't want him to get like, _sick _of her.

Then she thinks about how he keeps just dropping her at her apartment, never comes in, never suggests they go to his place, not since that night they went for yogurt and she's just not _sure_.

It's just like - okay, they go for walks and they go skating and they go to movies and they spend a lot of time talking (and making out in his car, which is just like, apparently she's fifteen all over again) and he always shuts them down right when they could be arrested for indecent exposure.

Winnie's getting a little frustrated over the whole thing, actually, feels like she's walking around turned on _all the time_, it's ridiculous.

(The thing is, she also can't really complain – like just last night, he told her to dress warm, showed up at her door with a back pack, took her hand and led her to a park. And okay, at first she was all like 'what the hell are we doing at a park at night?' but then he'd set a sleeping bag on the ground, told her to take a seat and whipped out a thermos of hot chocolate. He'd tossed her a bag of mini marshmallows, pulled a blanket across them and apparently she can now check _outdoor picnic in the middle of winter_ off her bucket list.)

He helps her bring her groceries inside one afternoon before shift (he goes fucking grocery shopping with her so really, she just wants to know why he doesn't want to get _naked_ with her) and she's ninety percent sure he's going to do that thing he usually does which is suggest they go out and 'do something' so she puts on a movie and they watch it and she has no idea at all what they're watching because all she's thinking about is how his hand feels running idly up and down her arm. It's like Pavlov and his dogs, Spike's hands on her and her just like, ready.

She kisses him first.

Just turns her head and then pulls him closer by the back of his neck. Literally three and a half minutes later, he has her in his lap, legs straddling his hips and his hands firmly on her thighs, painting lazy lines from her knees up to her back. His lips are on her neck and throat and Winnie's pretty sure she's whimpering against his shoulder, this noise she's not sure has ever come out of her mouth before.

He pulls her sweater up and off over her head and she kind of wishes she'd thought to put on a tank top that isn't a little stretched out and loose and possibly a better bra too. Whatever, doesn't matter, this is something she can work with, tugs on his t-shirt until he pulls that off too and there's just warm skin and heat and she's not even remotely nervous, isn't even thinking about tugging him into her bedroom, thinks that just here is _fine_ with her.

It is entirely possible that he gets her off twice while she's still fully clothed, mouth biting down on that spot right above her collarbone that no one else has ever even found before. She slumps against him after the second one, his hands moving to the skin on her back, underneath her tank top, warm and slow against her. Her legs are completely jellofied, takes her a second to push away from him and then slide onto the floor.

"What are you-"

Like he doesn't know, hello, she's on her knees here, unbuttons his jeans and yes, apparently this is a thing they are going to do while they're both still wearing half their clothes.

She feels like a genius when he chokes out her name, her mouth sliding onto him.

He is-he's polite. She can't think of any other word for it, doesn't even touch her hair, let alone grasp her head or force it anywhere she doesn't want it to go, barely moves his hips at all and okay, it's been a while since she did this but it's not like any other guy has ever _complained_ so she doesn't have any reason to think it's something she's not at least _passably_ good at_._ He gasps a little, holds his breath and okay, she's going to have to assume that he's just quiet and polite and apparently has no tells whatsoever, only then she thinks of his teeth sinking into any skin they can find, fingers tightening on her waist almost hard enough to bruise and she's pretty sure that this is just not-

She links their fingers together, squeezes his hands, feels like doing a little dance when he squeezes back, hard. So she tugs on them until he follows her, right into her hair and she feels him freeze against her the second he does.

It's actually kind of sweet of him, except that this is one time where she doesn't really want him to be either sweet or thoughtful (has this brief second of like what in the hell has even gotten into her, wants him to lose control or something, she doesn't even know) so she looks up at him, makes eye contact, gets her mouth off him for a second and says, "Come _on_."

Ostensibly, that's what gets him moving because then he's pulling on her hair in a way which should be completely unattractive but isn't at all, wrapping pieces of it around one fist, hips up against her and yes, yes this is what she was hoping for.

He chokes out, "Winnie, hang on-"

She ignores him entirely, is focused on the task at hand, wants to taste him - which, okay, who _is_ she because this is not something she generally _enjoys_ swallowing and any girl who says otherwise is probably lying-

Well.

Apparently, she's a liar.

There's this five second interval afterwards where he kind of just stares down at her in what looks like disbelief before he reaches down and hauls her back up into his lap, gets his hands on either side of her face (and like, okay, she is conscious of keeping her lips closed here, even as she runs her tongue over her teeth) and then kisses her hard, tongue right up in there. She ends up laughing into his mouth, even as they break apart and he kisses her on the nose.

He starts talking and stops three times before he just huffs. "Okay so...unexpected."

She grins, figures that getting someone off in record time is only ever a good thing, levers herself up and off his lap, pulling her damp hair off her neck and up into a ponytail. "You want anything?" She just feels a whole heck of a lot less on edge and also like, really really pleased with herself.

He just shakes his head wordlessly at her and she's pretty sure that she has a huge grin on her face even as she gets a glass of water, drains the whole thing and then reaches into her kitchen cupboard for some mints. She watches him stand up, eyes fixed on the long lines of his back, thinks that it's pretty criminal of him to look that way, hair all messy and jeans still unbuttoned. He glances at her, shakes his head sheepishly and then disappears into her bathroom. She stretches out on the couch, thinks probably she should consider cleaning up and you know, a change of underwear at the very least.

She checks the time and regretfully realizes that she's probably going to be late for work and they're going to have to speed the whole way there to make sure he's not late for work out.

He leans over her, one hand braced against the back of the couch, smiles at her, kisses her so gently she barely feels the kiss at all. She is seriously disappointed when she has to push him away so that she can get dressed.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Takes place right before chapter 14 (but really, do you need to know any of that to read these outtakes? Not so much).

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Sunday night after shift and Winnie's thinking that she'd really like to eat chicken wings for dinner. She's dressed and ready to go before Spike (he grinned at her as he came in from the garage, said he'd give her a ride home if she waited, raised his eyebrows and like, obviously she did because it's a thing that they do but also the uniform is like totally something she enjoys, pretty much just had her thinking about all the fun they could have after he gave her that ride so), leans on the desk and chats to Sid and Paul from Team Two to pass the time.

"Spike!" Sid greets him with a wave. "How's it going?"

She turns around grinning, catches Spike pulling his gaze up from her legs. She rolls her eyes and he shrugs at her, doesn't look sorry at all. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye while he makes small talk with Paul and Sid and she contributes exactly nothing to the conversation because mostly, she's thinking about how to combine the two things she wants the most right now (which – him and those chicken wings. It's just – how is she supposed to _choose_?).

Paul gets called away, Sid gets on the phone and she smiles at Spike. "Ready to go? I'm thinking chicken wings. Actually not just thinking. If we don't eat them, I'll die."

He snorts, waits until they get in the elevator and the doors close to slide his fingers over her waist and down her hip, yank her closer to him. "Wings? Really?"

She shivers, his mouth right behind her ear. "I've been thinking about them since 8:30 this morning," she informs him, tries to ignore what the feel of his hand on her hip is doing to her.

"That's kind of gross."

"So what? If I make them, you won't eat them?"

"I didn't say that."

She snorts, leans against him.

They argue over the radio on the way home but then Winnie flicks it over to Q107, lets him have his Zeppelin and he slides his hand onto her knee, grins over at her. "I like these."

She rolls her eyes but actually, her stomach is doing that thing where it flips over and her chest feels two sizes too small for her heart. "Oh yeah? They're the same ones I was wearing this morning."

"Interesting."

She has no idea what exactly is interesting until they get to his house and he drags her up the stairs, pushes her back up against the wall and kisses her fiercely, one knee wedged in between hers. She gasps against his lips when he slides his hand up inside her shirt and undoes her bra, pushes it out of his way, hands warm and callused and she's trying to undo the buttons on his shirt but he keeps moving out of the way. She kisses him hard on the mouth and she's pretty sure she bites down a little too hard on his bottom lip when his fingers slip into her underwear with no warning. He pulls away abruptly and kneels on the ground, gets her jeans down, runs his hands slowly up and down her legs, gives her this grin that she can barely return and she's shivering before he even presses his mouth to her knee.

"Spike-"

He ignores her, kisses right up her thigh and she's pretty sure she's making this shaky-sounding whimper, his mouth against her underwear until he pulls those down too. He's everywhere she needs him, mouth and fingers (and just like – she loses count right away, how he's so aggressive, thumb of his other hand stroking gently at the back of her knee and she knocks her head back against the wall a little too hard, wonders what exactly it says about her that she's whimpering his name but can't remember how to spell her own, is vaguely aware of moaning out some kind of variation of "Spike, _please_," even though she has absolutely no idea what she's even asking him for) and her legs shaking from the effort of still standing.

He just - it's like he understands exactly what she wants when she tightens her fingers in his hair, what she needs more of, listens to every single thing she does and doesn't say and yeah, okay, she is just _done_ having sex with regular guys (any other guy, ever), that's all.

She loses all concept of time, of her surroundings, her entire world shrinking down to him (and probably to his mouth, lips and tongue and teeth too which, she just doesn't even know when this became a thing for her – probably around the time _he_ became a thing for her). Every time she thinks he's got to be done, he just keeps going, like he's having as great a time as she is here. He's holding her up, forearm across her hips by the end (or to stop her from moving too much, she's not sure), her whole body exhausted and satiated and possibly not at all at the same time.

He has to lift her up and onto the bed (she's completely useless, can barely hold up her own head right now) and she's giggling out of sheer ridiculousness, has never had someone go down on her while she was still standing and wearing half her clothes (not like, properly but she did at least have them _on_) and it's just, like the impatience? She kind of likes it or something, she doesn't even know. He smiles against her neck and she slides her arms around him and hugs tightly.

He laughs. "I've been owing you that."

"You keeping score?" she asks breathlessly.

"Maybe. Why? You complaining?"

She shakes her head, eyes closing as he leans his own down to kiss her again, her legs pulled up past his hips.

He's laughing into her mouth because she won't let go of him long enough to get out of the rest of his clothes (it's just – she can't decide whether she wants to just hang onto him, body all warm against her, all that muscle under his shirt or if she wants to get her hands off him while he gets rid of his clothes. So – tough life she's living right now). "Hang on."

She huffs at him, makes a face at him playfully. "Hurry up."

He snorts at her, shakes his head. "When did you become so impatient?"

She shrugs, wriggles out of her shirt and bra and drops them over the side of the bed. "Not my fault. Take it as a compliment."

He settles back down against her, all the skin between them slick and slippery and every part of her still sensitive and her breath is shaky as she lets it out. He rolls his eyes at her good-naturedly, pushes a piece of her hair out of her face and gives her this smile she has no idea how to read (blames it entirely on how incoherent she feels right now).

"What? Think I'm talking too much?" She grins up at him, wraps her legs around him.

"Never," he says, kisses her hard on the mouth and she thinks she gasps a little, that first second where her eyes roll back and it's just-it's like as good as it was that first time, on his kitchen table and she makes this noise in the back of her throat that she knows for a fact she never made before she slept with him, right when his hips are right up against hers and he pauses. He kisses her lips gently, all soft and she smiles at him, this moment where everything's all quiet and still between them.

And then apparently, all those times he _just_ got her off don't even matter because he gets her there another three times, all the sound in her ears ringing and then slowing down, every moment bleeding into the next and she's suddenly aware that her throat feels hoarse, all that sharp breathing and possibly, she cries out a little too loudly, right in his ear that second time (and like, she's helping matters along here, one of her hands trapped between them, but it's just like, he knows exactly what spots to hit, must be able to hear the hitch in her breathing when it's so good she could scream because he just doesn't _stop_).

She's absolutely no help by the end, is totally just hanging on for the ride, fingers wrapped around his biceps, boneless and exhausted and her body shivering every time he moves against her (also, somehow they've ended up right up at the top of the bed and she has no memory of how they got there) and he laughs against her mouth and she can barely find the energy to kiss him back.

Which - it's all crap anyway because he sucks hard at the skin right beneath her collar bone, skin that can be hidden with the right shirt and she lets out this completely wrecked sound that must do something for him because he's suddenly all rough in a way that really shouldn't make her as happy as it does and really, she didn't think she could take anymore (like that it wasn't _possible_) but then she does and there's that third time and well, yeah, okay, she's pretty much done now (him like, coming apart really does it for her, which is absolutely and entirely ridiculous when she thinks about it, because he's a _guy_, not like it's something unexpected), thinks she could happily pass out right here, his weight comfortable against her, his heart beating hard right against her chest, sweat cooling between them.

She's very vaguely aware of him moving a little, his skin still against hers. He lets out a breath of laughter next to her ear. "You okay?"

"Think I'm dead."

"Oh okay. Just checking. Guess you don't want those wings anymore."

It takes all the effort she possesses to open her eyelids but she does, narrows her eyes at him. "Shit. I forgot about those," she says mournfully.

He laughs. "It's been a few hours. You still want them?"

"Um."

"What happened to dying if you didn't get them?"

She shrugs as best she can without moving. "Got switched around with you, I guess." It comes out a lot less teasingly than it sounded in her head.

He snorts. "I think I left a mark," he says, thumbs at her skin, that spot right beneath her collar bone.

"Who cares?"

"You do."

"Nope. Don't remember ever saying that. Didn't happen."

"Huh. Must have imagined it then." His thumb is still on her skin, just rubbing gently and she lets out a satisfied sigh when he brushes his lips against the same spot.

"Okay," she mutters. "Wings." Wonders how she never knew that sex could basically leave you incoherent (which - really unfortunate for her. Would have been more unfortunate if she'd gone through her whole life never figuring it out). "Wait, one more thing." She reaches up blindly and pulls him closer so that she can kiss him.

He laughs, kisses her back and she wishes there was a button she could just push to have those chicken wings appear right here beside them.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: For anyone interested in continuity, this happens at the end of chapter 15 - I really doubt you need to read that in great detail to follow what's going on here though. Just, you know - background.

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She thinks her breathing skips for a second and Spike stops what he's doing immediately. "Hey, we don't have to-"

"No. No, it's fine." Her voice is super high-pitched though and it _is_ fine, it's not like this is a big deal, just, well okay, look, this is not the kind of thing you do when you're casually sleeping with someone and Winnie hasn't exactly had a serious person to do this with like, ever (and god knows, she'd never have done this with Rob – which, actually, would have been good to know at the time. Trust – or a serious lack of it – and all of that, probably would have told her in less than five seconds everything she couldn't face at the time). So. Nervous. She's just nervous.

Spike gives her this reassuring smile and she finds herself smiling back, heartbeat slowing just a little and she's the one who reaches up and kisses him, wants him to go back to what he was doing two minutes ago, hands on her ribcage and tongue against hers.

(Also. She started carrying extra underwear in her purse, right in the side pocket, after the second time they slept together because who wants to go home in ruined underwear? No one. She's also been doing a lot more laundry since she started sleeping with him but that's really neither here nor there.)

She lets out this throaty moan that sounds completely contrived but isn't when his fingers slip into the waistband of the dark red Hanky Pankys she's got on (okay, so she did some planning ahead here, she's not ashamed of it, it's not like he doesn't notice so).

He gives her this grin, all dark and a little dangerous before he leans down and nips hard at her collar bone. Possibly, it's a thing she's admitted to herself that she likes and her whole body shivers.

He mouths his way down her stomach, five o'clock shadow scratching lightly at her skin, all the hair on the back of her neck standing up and she's biting down hard on her bottom lip to keep from swearing. Except then, he bites at her hip bone and all the bottom lips in the world wouldn't be enough.

"_Fuck_," she mutters, this snarling little hiss.

He smirks up at her, like the challenge was to make her say it and he won (but also, clearly, she's winning here too). "Stay still," he says.

Which is suddenly impossible, wasn't until he told her to and her breathing is doing this ridiculous thing where it's really loud, all harsh and like, desperate, and all she can hear. She's bracing herself for more when he abruptly moves all the way back up, the slide of his body against hers making her arch right into him, like she's right on the edge even though he's barely touched her anywhere below her waist. She looks up at him and is just sure that he knows exactly what she was expecting him to do, this devilish little smile.

Winnie narrows her eyes at him, waits for him to kiss her and then loops her leg around his hip and twists. It's not quite as effective as it would be on someone without his reflexes and he laughs a little into her mouth as she hovers over him, scratches her nails lightly across his chest (she doesn't miss the way his abs jump and she raises her eyebrows at him, grins when he rolls his eyes at her in response).

She's gotten pretty familiar with how his skin feels by now, all the muscle and how everything's all hard (and not just the obvious – all that training isn't going to waste here. She's actually a little worried that one day she's going to get really drunk and tell Ed that by accident), all the power in his arms and chest. She's also gotten pretty familiar with how much he enjoys her kissing her way down his stomach, does exactly what he did, bites her way lightly back up the path she came down and then kisses him on the lips.

"Unlike you," she says, leaning close to him, "I'm not a huge tease."

He laughs, stops abruptly when she wriggles her way back down his body, mouth over him and seriously, she has no idea when it became a thing for her to _enjoy_ the feel of someone (him) at the very back of her throat.

She waits for a minute and a half, sliding her mouth over and around him, swallowing, until he lets out this groan that may or may not be some kind of amalgamation of an expletive and her name, grins and pushes herself back, climbs over him on all fours.

"Liar," he accuses weakly.

She bursts out laughing, tosses her hair behind one shoulder. "Am I?"

He grasps her by the hips, rolls them over and she's still laughing when he slides two fingers up inside her, almost chokes on her own saliva (but then, he looks all pleased at how she feels, and like, apparently, what's turning her on these days is _everything he does_ which is so ridiculous, she should be embarrassed but then he grins at her and she's just not. At all).

She raises her eyebrow at him. "So?"

"You want to? Seriously?" He sounds disbelieving. She doesn't actually blame him, thinks she got a little too freaked out earlier (which - again, stupid, it's not like he suggested anything _weird_, to most people, what he suggested is probably as vanilla as her sex life before him was).

"You brought it up," she points out, fingers reaching out to pull the edge of the scarf closer. "So?"

"Winnie, we don't have to-"

"I want to." She says it real fast, is suddenly really into the whole idea, even though it's like, so absurd and cliché and she is not the main character in a really bad erotic fiction novel.

He laughs. "Okay. Okay. Um. Just so we're clear. I'm not going to-"

"-do anything weird. I know." She does know. All the fear that was sitting in the bottom of her stomach is gone and she thinks it's been replaced with some kind of really outrageous anticipation. As in, if he doesn't get on with things here, she's going to just do it herself.

He's still looking down at her, eyes searching her face for something so she huffs and tells him exactly that. Slides one hand down her own side like she's going to-

The scarf is tied around her eyes before she can even get to her waistband. She clears her throat, takes a deep slow breath in through her nose and tries not to think about all the things she's just given up (like – her sight, for one, control and the driver's seat and she doesn't even know what else). Spike's hands are at her hips and he slides her underwear down and she's as naked as he is.

It's-it is _weird_ not being able to see anything, like she feels the bed dip on her left and assumes that's where he is but then he licks at the inside of her right thigh and it's _unexpected_ and she keeps jumping (not in a bad way, not at all, actually thinks it's pretty fucking enjoyable, his fingers skimming across her ribs, how after the third pass, she knows which fingers he's touching her with from the way the calluses on them feel, how his tongue is a hundred degrees hotter than she imagined it being).

It creeps up on her, one single brush of his hand and she's coming apart, doesn't realize it until she is, gasping his name, aware of her back arching. His lips are on hers before it's even over, this kiss like he's drowning, or she is, and she has no idea whose idea it is, if it's him or her or both of them but she ends up with her back to him, that hot press of him from behind her, and he lowers her down on her stomach, his right hand between her and the mattress and and when he bites at her shoulder lightly, she nearly chokes on the pillow (he gets her off though, so nearly suffocating isn't going to stop her, not at all, good to know. It's not like she usually takes long, not with him, is usually so turned on that he touches something innocuous like her wrist and she's done. But with her eyes covered, how she can hear things that she doesn't usually hear, how she can't predict anything he's going to do – well, whatever. In any case, that's two for her and zero for him and she's got a goal in mind now and it's great that he has one too but she likes being the one to make him incoherent).

She's aware of him laughing, the pillow suddenly nowhere near her mouth and she's laughing too, even though her whole body is aching and still-ready at the same time. "Up?" That's the best she can do, is completely monosyllabic here.

"Okay," he says agreeably, like he's still smiling.

He moves with her and she grins to herself when she presses back against him, sudden and hard, hears this muttered curse and she does it again while his fingers fumble at her hips.

"_Winnie_." His voice is totally ruined, all rough, like he's got a bad case of strep. It makes her shiver right to the tips of her fingers.

"My turn," she says, tells him she wants to get on top now (thinks it comes out sounding a little bossy, wonders when in the hell that happened), grins when he lets out this soft huff of laughter.

He pinches her as he moves and she slaps his hand away from her breast with a snicker, can picture him sliding his back up against the headboard. She doesn't even reach for the scarf covering her eyes, lets him pull her to him, right into his lap, blind with his hands on her.

She finds his lips, kisses him hard on the mouth, has no idea how she's supposed to line them up if she can't even see-

Well, he does it for them anyway.

Probably, by this point in the night, it shouldn't be as satisfying as it was at the beginning but it is, all hot, this agonizing stretch that she should be used to but isn't and everything slippery as she clings to him.

He kisses his way down to her neck, mutters all kinds of stuff in her ear that she would never repeat to anyone, mind and hips focused on one goal (okay, see, here's the problem with her big goal – and it's the same problem she has every time, it's just that she starts off and then it's like her body reminds her that this is _awesome_ and oh right, she's going to have to veer away from her goal for one small moment and it's so _hard_ to ignore all the things he's doing to her. Also, Spike's fingers are digging hard into her hips and that and all the friction between them, the muscles in his arms that she's got her hands wrapped around, how he breathes hard against the side of her neck – here's the bottom line, she can't _stop _herself, can't tell her body to ignore it for the time being so she can make him come instead).

Also, immediately after she falls right over the edge and into his arms, she's useless. Like boneless, stupid-useless, can't lift her head or move or do anything other than bite down on his shoulder. Pulls herself together with difficulty, keeps going and he moves suddenly, this motion that brings her way closer to him and she lets out a yelp of surprise, feels him breathe a laugh against her lips before he kisses her, hands suddenly rough on her and she welcomes it which just goes to show, he's gone and changed everything around in her brain. Also, it's completely and totally foolish for her to feel _accomplished_ but he groans her name and that's what she feels. Totally satisfied and accomplished.

He tugs the scarf off her face and she blinks in the half light, grins at him. He gives her this cautious smile and she feels her grin widen. She pulls him towards her for a kiss, hand at the back of his neck, all content and also like they definitely made a mess of his bed and she doesn't care. He moves them slowly, hand at her back as he lifts her so they can lie flat.

"So next time you suggest something, we're obviously just going to get right into it," she says and her voice is a little teasing but she's completely serious, is just about ready to follow him anywhere.

Spike snorts. "Really."

"Really."

"Yeah? You sure?"

She stares at him, like _obviously_, can't he tell that sex with him is a thing she enjoys and wouldn't mind doing all the time? "Yeah," she says emphatically. "A lot."

He laughs, kisses her again and they are somewhere in the middle of the bed sideways but he pulls her close to him, tugs her so that she's lying against his chest, kisses her temple. She shifts a little closer, sighs blissfully at the feel of his arm around her, skin on skin.

His fingers rub at her waist just a little and it makes her do that thing where she loses her filter and just starts throwing up words. "I didn't know that was going to be, like. Fun."

He laughs, brushes his lips against hers. "Yeah? What did you think it was going to be?"

"Like. Humiliating?"

His fingers pause just for a second and then resume running across her and she's already cursing herself for opening her mouth (one time, her and Rob, one time where it wasn't vanilla and she never wanted to do it again, which should probably tell anyone listening exactly how it went).

"Spike. No. I didn't think _you_ were going to be like that." She clears her throat, looks right at him. "I didn't."

"Okay."

"I really didn't. I don't…I know you wouldn't-I don't think that you would…I just-it's-like, we just have possibly the greatest sex ever, is all I'm saying." She's babbling. Wants to shut up but can't. "Like you should tell people how good you are at it, it's like being really good at Monopoly. Or. Boggle. The point is-"

He cuts her off with a kiss, tongue sliding into her mouth. "I think I got the point," he says, smiles at her like he saw through all the crap that came out of her mouth to what she was actually trying to say.

She tangles her hands in his hair when she kisses him, all lazy and slow, his lips soft against hers. She smiles at him when they break apart, both of them barely a centimetre away from each other and she runs her fingers through his hair, tries to undo the unruliness she just put into it. His eyes close, this look of enjoyment on his face that's totally different to the other look of enjoyment he gets on his face and they lie there for what feels like hours, her just running her fingers through his hair, leaning over on one elbow to kiss him and his hand never leaving her waist and hip.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Someone pointed out that it might be awkward for me to be in the same room with these two actors at the finale event last night after having written all this stuff (spoiler: it wasn't. Because apparently when they were giving out shame, someone took my portion and left me with none) and then I finished this so make of that what you will. Let's say this takes place somewhere between chapters 15 and 16.

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Winnie's exhausted, working a nineteen hour day is not something she wishes on anyone and she knows she's starting to crash, all the caffeine she's consumed in the past twenty hours (that said, people have been bringing her coffee every hour on the hour, she's got a collection of little cups lined up on the side of her desk and Spike and Leah brought her dinner from her favourite Greek place so she might be incoherent but she also adores every single person she works with).

"You're off tomorrow," Boss says, giving her a stern look. "We'll get a relief in if we have to, but there's no way you can be pulling days like this."

She smiles up at him, shrugs. "We'll be okay for tomorrow – it was just today. Sid was up north, Ryan has his kid this weekend, Jen worked last night and Pete had to get a flight out this afternoon." She holds back a yawn, knows she missed someone out there but she can't for the life of her think of who.

"Good. Go home."

"But-" she starts protesting.

"Now. I'll cover your desk for a few minutes. Jen'll be here soon."

"Boss-"

"I'm sure I can handle it," he says dryly, although he gives her desk a wary look. "And what are the odds of another call?"

She raises an eyebrow, doesn't really want to think about that. "You sure? Cause I-"

"Home. Now."

She laughs, sweeps all her coffee cups into the recycling bin, ignores the incredulous look he gives the sheer number of them.

"Wow, Boss as a dispatcher? Hopefully, he doesn't actually have to _do_ anything."

She finds herself grinning at the sound of Spike's voice, turns to look at him. "Hey." Boss shakes his head at her, a smile on his face like possibly, she is the most transparent person on the planet.

Spike raises his eyebrows, eyes on hers. "How much coffee have you had?"

"Too much." Actually, she doesn't know, lost count a cup or two after eleven and the caffeine's kind of making her feel light-headed now that she thinks about it. She knows they're standing too close, usually they're a little more professional at work, like she doesn't usually stand so far into his space that she can smell him (it's just - he's clearly had a shower and possibly her mouth is watering so she's _definitely_ had too much caffeine and her hands are all jittery. Also, she's staring at his lips and thinking things that she shouldn't be thinking when she's still at work). She clears her throat, takes a step backwards because hi there, remember the time Boss was standing a foot and a half away? Right.

Spike gives her this smirk that kind of makes her want to throw her full weight against him, muscle him back against the wall and like, this is evidently going to be one of those nights when she's going to need that change of underwear, is all she's saying.

"I'll give you a ride."

And who _is_ she that she is taking that the most suggestive way possible? Even though she knows that's not at all what he meant. Whatever. She needs to change. Resolutely doesn't look at Boss as she agrees.

She gets dressed fast, thinks it's just beyond ridiculous that's she's like, already ready, meets him by the elevator. She slides her hand into the back pocket of his jeans once they get outside the front doors and smiles up at him. "Backseat?"

He lets out a shout of laughter, like he doesn't think she's serious (she _is_ serious, doesn't care that there are cameras in the parking lot or that it's freezing). "Cute."

She narrows her eyes at him and then snatches the keys out of his hand (obviously, he lets her because his reflexes are way better than hers, probably wants to see what exactly she's going to do. Well. She'll show him). He rolls his eyes at her and she drives them out of the parking lot, couple kilometers straight and down a side road, pulls over and grins at him.

"Winnie. _Seriously_?" There's this flabbergasted tone to his voice that is not entirely unattractive (or, like at all, she really thinks she needs some kind of psychiatric assistance here but also, she doesn't care if she does or not, as long as she can have him first). "You realize that people _live_ here, right?"

"That's why I said the backseat," she says with an eye roll. "You're the one who told me about the tint on the back windows, you know." She slips out of her shoes and climbs over the gap in the seats. "Well?" Her heart's hammering away in her chest, coffee and want and this is so not like her, she used to think a bed was a perfectly acceptable place to have sex with someone in. (Look, he's expanded her horizons, okay?)

For less than a second, it looks like he's going to protest.

He doesn't.

There's really no room in the backseat for both of them and she suddenly has this vision of her first date in high school, that 'musician' with the car trying to get under her skirt in a situation kind of like this one (except, she was fifteen and it didn't happen at all like how this is going to happen because she said no and made him drive her home). They're kissing feverishly and it's cold without the heat on but Winnie's kind of enjoying the difference in temperature between the parts of her that are against Spike and the parts of her (like the back of her left shoulder, for example) that aren't. She hops off him as gracefully as she can, has to lie down on the seat to wriggle out of her jeans.

He runs his fingers through his hair, shakes his head at her. "Are we seriously-we are like right outside someone's house. They probably have kids."

She snorts. "It's one-thirty in the morning, no kids are going to be walking past." At least – well, the odds of kids walking past are slim to none. She slides back into his lap. "We'll be quick." Because mostly, she doesn't care what those potentially-existing kids see or don't see. As is evidenced by her unbuckling his belt and tugging his jeans open, thinks that it really is convenient that men's underwear doesn't even need to be pushed down and also, she has to restrain herself from totally changing direction here and getting her mouth all over him.

He stares at her, lets out this breath of laughter. "That's really not-I-we don't have to be-" Yeah, despite all these half-hearted protests he's giving her, this idea is evidently one that he's into.

She grins at him, thinks that this is probably one of her favourite things to do, possibly ever and he makes her just want to do it _all the time_, in cars, at work, on tables, wherever, it really doesn't matter. "I worked a really long day," she says conversationally, "and I drank way too much coffee."

"Yeah, okay I'm not following what-_Win_-" He lets out a choked noise, inhaling sharply.

So perhaps just sinking down onto him like that with no warning wasn't very fair and it really shouldn't do as much for her as it does, like she shouldn't count it as this huge achievement when she gets him all unrestrained."Sorry," she says breathlessly, thinks that at some point, she'll get used to it, how gratifying that first slide is, the noise he makes when he's all the way against her, when it's not possible to get any closer.

He gets both hands on her face, smiles, brushes her cheeks with his thumbs, slides his tongue into her mouth in a way that she is slowly realizing is going to mess her up forever, should there ever come a time when she kisses someone else (which - yeah, no. The thought flutters right out of her head, how he meets her hips with his own, makes her totally forget everything but this).

She's pretty sure the seatbelt buckle is going to leave a permanent mark on her right knee in addition to messing up her leverage and that in order to avoid slamming her head into the roof of the car, she has to stay close to him which actually is probably just an excuse to get him biting at her neck which obviously is not a thing she has to beg for here.

She's gasping for air, is also trying to be quiet in case someone really is walking down this street at one-thirty in the morning, nevermind all that stuff she just said, is alternating biting down on the inside of her bottom and top lips.

"Wanna hear you," he mutters in her ear, so that's her biting down on her lips right out the window because pretty much, it's too difficult to remember to shut up and also, well, he asked her so nicely, voice all rough and. Yeah. Possibly, she's just ridiculous, she doesn't even know.

She thinks that if it weren't him here with her, she'd be pretty scandalized by some of the stuff that's coming out of her mouth, the way he makes her want to tell him things, how she should be a little embarrassed at how completely needy she sounds, how she gets her hands on him and just digs her nails in. How all of this just makes everything between them better instead of worse, how he makes it about _her_, like what he needs isn't even a thought in his mind and she slides her arms around his neck, rests her forehead against his and just slows down for a second, his eyes right on hers.

He looks at her, smiles and it's just like everything in her feels like warmth has just been turned right on her.

Also, he slides one hand up inside her shirt, right under her bra and she can hear herself like, begging him, all these whimpers and telling him to keep going and he kisses her some more as he tilts her hips ever so slightly and she gets louder than she's been all night.

She pulls way too hard at his hair, moans her way through her first time when everything kind of peaks violently and it feels like she might actually bite right through his lip until she's just fighting for breath right into his mouth and he's staring at her like possibly, he likes what he's seeing and then he gets her there a second time, everything in the world righting itself for a moment even as it turns her upside down. Both of them have a hand each between them, both of their fingers tangled together (hers stalled out right after she came that first time but his definitely didn't and okay, he is just like stupidly good at getting her off, fingers all steady and like, the pressure's pretty much perfect) and it is just - well actually, it's almost too much but in a way that's almost too good. He bites right at the spot beneath her ear, fingers of his other hand digging into her waist and her hips do this thing where they stutter a little, like she totally loses her rhythm and he groans something in this weird mix of Italian and English that she obviously doesn't understand but gets the general gist of.

Spike kisses her hard, this deep bruising kiss that leaves her clinging to him as their movements slow. She rests her head against his shoulder, closes her eyes.

Clean up is going to be a disaster, is the thought that crosses her mind from where she's lying against him, his arms tight around her, one hand stroking gently up her spine. "I've never had sex in a car." Is what comes out of her mouth and she snickers a little at herself, pushes her head up so she can look at him.

"Oh yeah?" His eyes are closed and he's got a lazy smile on his face. "Well, no one'd ever guess." He pauses. "Wait, that didn't come out right."

She rolls her eyes at him, also thinks that the mess between them should be more offputting than she's currently finding it. Instead, she leans forward to kiss his cheek, inhales against his skin because he smells _really_ good and also because she's suddenly realized she could pass out quite happily right here. "I'm really tired."

He looks at her, pulls her closer to him, one hand on her jaw so he can kiss her, this soft kiss that makes her snuggle just a little closer. Yeah. She's crashing here, totally exhausted. Content too, though. "Yeah well. You did some hard work there." He sounds ridiculously pleased.

She brushes her lips against the side of his neck, laughs against his skin, is finding that her eyelids are getting really heavy and that she wishes she'd gotten him out of his shirt before they'd started so that she could be against his skin right now.

"We should go," he says, sounds a little regretful, fingers never pausing from where they're now stroking at her waist.

It really takes every ounce of energy she didn't just expend for her to heave herself off him and back into her clothes (also, scrambling into her underwear after that is completely putting a damper on her evening and she glares at Spike because he sees the look on her face and starts laughing). He leans over and kisses her hair when they finally maneuver themselves out of the backseat and she's peering out the window to see if anyone's hanging around watching them.

"Already checked."

She huffs. "And?"

"Well if someone was standing out there with a video camera, it's pretty much too late to do anything about it now."

She makes a face. "Aw, thanks. That's reassuring."

He laughs, pulls her hand to him and presses his lips to the back of it, right against her wristbone.

She leans back in her seat, rests her head against the door. "Think I hurt my knee," she yawns. "Something hard in your backseat." His eyes flash at her and she sighs. "Oh please."

He snickers childishly and shrugs at her. "Want me to kiss it better?"

Considering how tired she is and everything they just got finishing (twice, in her case), the thought of him kissing her knee-

He gives her this knowing look, like he can read exactly what she's thinking about and she tosses her hair half-heartedly at him.

"Round two when we get to my place?" She's only partially joking, actually thinks that maybe she can find the energy for it. And if not, there's always tomorrow morning. And tomorrow afternoon.

He laughs. "There's no way you're going to be conscious. But you know. Some people are into that."

She laughs too. "Shut up." Yeah. Round two sounds like it'll be a go.

He reaches over, turns up the heat and she hears indistinct sounds, the wind outside and Spike singing along softly to a song she doesn't know, his hand warm on her thigh.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I don't even know if anyone cares when in the timeline these take place but this is slotted in before chapter 16. I don't even have an explanation for this one, it just happened. My apologies.

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She's been here most of the night, was going to go home right after work, clean her apartment, make dinner. But Spike grinned at her, jokingly told her that her time would be better spent eating dinner with him at his house and she'd blindly followed along because apparently, he smiles, shows her that dimple and she just giggles like she's a pre-teen and then does whatever will keep him smiling.

(So what if he'd been right about how her time would have been better spent? She doesn't want to be one of those girls who can't do anything alone, already wore that hat and it wasn't such a nice hat to be wearing. In the end.)

They'd made dinner together, Spike stopping to drop kisses on her neck and temple while he worked around her and she ate her food with one leg folded under her, grinning across the table at him. And then they'd watched tv and he'd sat way too close to her and then laid down with his head in her lap and she'd gotten her fingers in his hair and he'd closed his eyes.

She glances at her watch, has no idea whatsoever how it got to be after eleven. "I should probably go," she says, wonders if he can hear all the regret in her tone because she sure can. But they spent most of the day together, as well as the whole night, Team One at HQ and Spike tossing bits of paper and pens at her as she tried to show him the new upgrades to the server, like it was eleventh grade math class (Ed had barged in on them about fifteen times like he'd been expecting to find them in a compromising position or something. After the fifteenth time, Leah had dragged him away, rolled her eyes at the two of them and Ed had called out, "Behave yourselves!" from the doorway).

Spike looks at her, this deep, studying kind of look and she raises an eyebrow at him.

"What?"

"It's cold. Want to watch a movie first?"

And like, she's tired, but also, lying on Spike's couch with a movie on sounds pretty fucking good right now. "I should-" she starts saying, sees how he looks down and stops herself. "Yeah okay." Possibly it comes off a little enthusiastic for eleven-fifteen at night but oh well, it's out there now.

She pulls the blanket over herself, leans against the arm rest as he roots around for a movie and she's starting to fall asleep right here, this blanket that smells like him and the couch warm from where they've been sitting. She thinks she watches the first five minutes, has no idea whatsoever what's going on, Spike's arm around her and his fingers rubbing idly at her hip bone, warm under the edge of her shirt.

She's vaguely aware of saying of course she's awake, no they shouldn't turn the movie off, of him laughing against her temple. And then she's out.

There's a moment several hours later where she's somewhere between sleep and awake, when she's so turned on she's almost shuddering. She knows that they're definitely in his bed and she's in her underwear and t-shirt under the blankets, is barely conscious of sliding her hand beneath the band of Spike's underwear. He's a light sleeper, wakes at the slightest thing and his hand catches at her wrist before she can really do much more than brush her fingertips against him.

She can't see him clearly, not in the dark, blinds closed and her still barely conscious, closes her eyes again. The hand on her wrist relaxes almost immediately. She chews on her bottom lip, slides one leg over his hips so she's straddling him. She hears his breathing change as she leans down, finds his lips in the dark and kisses him. His fingers wrap around her upper arms and it should not – _should not_ – be a thrilling thing to know that he could flip her right off of him if he wanted to, not at all (actually, he could probably break both her arms if he wanted to and what exactly is it saying about her that this is a thing that is turning her on? Possibly, she's entirely lost her mind) and he doesn't so she trails her lips down his throat and sucks hard at the side of his neck.

His hips move under her, this hard involuntary movement and she's grinning into his neck when he lets out a soft hiss, tangles one hand in her hair when he kisses her.

His hands slide down her body, out of her hair, over her shoulder blades, her waist and she knows she mutters something when he gets to the top of her thighs, presses his fingers into her skin and she's the one who moves her hips this time.

They kiss some more, until he's moving his hips insistently under her and she's gasping his name, biting lightly at his shoulder and her underwear all damp, one of his hands up inside her shirt, warm and callused and feeling way too good for her to do anything more than push herself into it.

She wriggles out of her underwear, fights his off of him too and when she leans close, gets them lined up, she can see his eyes all alert and open and he lets out a low sleepy laugh that makes her fumble for just a second.

It's lazy and slow, this rocking of her hips with none of the urgency that's usually between them. He tugs on the back of her neck, pulls her down to him, kisses her lips and then her throat, and now that her eyes have adjusted to the dark, she can just barely see him, this vague outline and his eyes still on her.

It's probably that that does her in, the way he's just staring at her, that slow dragging thing she's doing lying right against his chest, all of her nerve endings aching and she's really got to wonder what it is about him that gets her there so _fast_, like they are five and a half seconds into this thing and-

Whatever. She buries her face in his neck, thinks she lets out a soft noise and the whole thing is made just a little better by how his fingers dig into her hips right when everything else is hazy, how it grounds her a little so that she can find her way back.

He rolls them over, they get a little tangled in the sheet, both of them snickering childishly and he doesn't stop moving against her, even when she whimpers, her body just getting caught along for the ride, even though in her brain, things are still half a second behind. He pulls her up against him and she gasps a little because yes, that right there is a good angle, she's going to get there again with him hitting that same spot over and over and she tugs on his lip with her teeth and she curses right into his mouth, feels him smile.

She hears words like beautiful and perfect breathed right against her skin but it's just in the periphery, she's too focused on how she's climbing, his hand between them, all close again, and how his skin against hers is this thing that she just really really likes, and she's getting a cramp in her right calf but also, she doesn't care because he is just like stupidly good at making her-

That's two.

And also, he's not stopping, even though, she can see him gritting his teeth, brow all furrowed in concentration and she rakes her fingers through his hair because that's a thing she knows he likes, tells him, "Spike, come on, already." And he grins at her and doesn't listen, doesn't stop until she's arching up against him a third time, everything in her exhausted and satiated and like also, she knows he likes it when she's coming apart around him, all the ways that he made it happen, knows that he likes her loud so she doesn't hold back and he collapses against her and it's possible that after, his weight on her is all she wants.

She lets out a muttered curse, everything in her a little delayed and a lot blissed out. Wonders if this is what functional relationships are supposed to be like, like you can roll over and have crazy intense sex while you're still half-asleep and it can turn out to be so ridiculously good. And beyond which, she just wants him close to her, likes falling asleep next to him, even if he does throw off heat like a furnace. Bottom line - she's learning a lot of great things from this relationship.

"I was sleeping," he says hoarsely, grinning at her, a flash of teeth in the dim light.

She snorts, breathing only just returning to normal, pulse slowing. She stretches, thinks she probably shouldn't be so smug about the fact that her hamstrings are pulling. "Yeah, I didn't see you stopping me."

He laughs. "Yeah. M'tired. S'gross if we just go back to sleep now and then get up early and shower?"

"Probably less gross for you," she yawns. But also, that sounds like a really good deal right there.

There's another pause and she thinks he must have fallen asleep when he says, "I'm going to set the alarm for earlier."

For a second, she has no idea what he's talking about. "'Kay."

"We need to stop by your place in the morning?"

"Yeah. Clothes." So she's been reduced to monosyllabic syllables. Good to know.

There's a pause. "Well. You left a shirt here before. It's clean. If you just want to wear that."

Her eyelids spring open in the dark, something about the idea of him doing her laundry or having things that live in his space, she doesn't even know.

"Win?" He sounds like he's going to laugh, like he thinks maybe she fell asleep mid-conversation.

"Yeah?"

"You hear me?"

"Yep." She thinks it's better if she doesn't say anything that's on her mind right now, doesn't want to ruin their blissed out high.

He leans over her and she slides up in the dark, kisses his chest as he fiddles with the clock. He nuzzles against her when he's done, kisses against her hair and his hands warm against her side.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: If you're interested in a timeline for where this occurs, it's perhaps a year and a bit - or so - after the end of chapter 20. Not that it's really necessary to know that before reading this (I don't think - but if I'm wrong, by all means, feel free to correct me). Also, perhaps I should warn you that it gets silly - a huge surprise, I'm sure.

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Winnie would really like to know where all her self control has disappeared to. It's just - so, she's trying to think about it and she just can't figure out where it all went wrong.

All she did was go to the bathroom and wash her hands, had just set foot into the hallway and was about to walk back to the table - all while minding her own business - when someone grasped her by the elbow and yanked her through a different door. And quite clearly, since then, she's done nothing remotely resembling walking back to the table.

"Spike," she hisses, grabs at his hands from where they're steadily snaking the hem of her dress up over her thighs, "we're in the _bathroom_."

He pauses, pulls away for a second to stare at her before snickering, his tone all teasing. "Yeah? What gave it away?"

She presses her lips together, tries not to laugh, his mouth back on the side of her neck. Tilts her head slightly and tries to think about why stopping is a good idea. "We can't just-"

"Why not?"

She stares at him. "Because it's a _public_ _bathroom_ and it's disgusting?" Somewhere in the back of her mind, she has this vague thought like that shouldn't be the actual problem she has with this idea.

He quirks his lips at her. "I'm not saying that we should just drop down and do it on the floor."

She shoots him an incredulous look. "That's good. Because that's gross. And like, what, over a _urinal_? With the rest of Team One right outside? Are you _insane_?"

He kisses her again and she's pretty sure that that knot relaxing in her stomach, being replaced with what is definitely anticipation, is her resolve totally disappearing. "They're not going to notice."

"A bunch of profiling cops aren't going to notice that we've already been in the bathroom at the same time for more than five minutes?" she says skeptically. "You don't have much faith in the rest of them, do you?"

He rolls his eyes at her, hand sliding down over her waist and back up again.

This is such an extremely stupid idea.

She huffs at him. "Fine. But we'd better get in the stall then." Yeah, her resolve is totally a thing of the past and who in the hell _is_ she right now, suggesting this at all? She has never ever ever had sex in a public place (that one time against the side of his house and those few times in the car notwithstanding and it's not like that was _public_, they were behind tinted windows and it was after midnight and, you know, the rest of the people they work with weren't thirty feet away), and is actually okay with leaving it that way forever until she thinks about the fact that she really wants him _right the fuck now_ and apparently, delayed gratification is no longer a thing that works for her. She also has no idea who she can blame any of this on.

He stares at her, eyebrows way up. "Are you serious?"

"This was _your_ idea!" she hisses.

He grins, grasps her by the forearms, pushes her backwards until they're in the stall and then they have to wrangle the door closed behind them.

She's giggling helplessly, is also trying not to touch anything because, you know. Ew. "We have to be fast."

He snorts, gives her this smile that does all sorts of ridiculous things to her insides. "_You_ have to be fast you mean."

"I'm very fast," she retorts before realizing that it's pretty much the exact opposite of what she was trying to say.

He snickers, looks all pleased with himself in a way that just makes her want to do pretty much anything at all that he wants to do to her. "Not to toot my own horn or anything here but uh – that's not a thing you usually complain about."

She rolls her eyes at him. Well, she really can't argue with that. "Nothing fancy," she warns. "One time, we'll keep it fair."

"Too bad," he says grinning at her. "You know I really like it when you-"

"We're on a time constraint here," she interrupts, already thinking that wearing a dress really _is_ easy access and she's not sure she's ever going to be able to wear one to work ever again because then she'll have to wear it home and this is what she'll be thinking about the whole time (and she doesn't quite trust herself not to suggest pulling over to use the bathroom of a Wendy's or something equally horrifying).

"How are we doing this, by the way?"

She raises her eyebrows in challenge, turns her back to him and tugs the hem of her dress up past her hips. She hears him swallow.

"Oh."

She tilts her neck and glances at him over her shoulder. "Unless you had any better ideas."

He runs his fingers up the inside of her thigh, over her hip bone, tugs lightly on the lacy waistband of her underwear. "Yeah, no, think this will work."

"Have at it then." Flashes him a smirk over her shoulder. It's just-it's possible she's been ready since she saw him walk in from the garage at work (all the tac gear and how he was mid-laugh), which is a thing he'll probably figure out in the next five seconds so there's really no point in telling him.

"'Have at it'," he mutters shaking his head, looks like he's going to laugh. "You used to be such a nice girl."

"Was that before or after I made you have sex with me on your kitchen table?" She's well aware that the stall wall is disgusting but also, she needs something to brace herself against and it's really either that or nothing. Plus, the more she feels his breath against her shoulder and his hands on her, the more she's starting to really not care.

He snorts, presses a kiss against her neck. "You didn't _make _me."

"Oh please - if it was up to you, we'd still be holding hands and making out across the centre console in your car." It makes her snicker to think about how they were back then, too new and too foolish to know better (of course, then she thinks about Spike sticking around to not-really-date-her-but-date-her and basically, he's still one of her most favourite people ever).

"I was trying to be _thoughtful_."

"And you were," she says, grinning at him over her shoulder. "Very. Now are you dropping your pants or am I going to have to do it for you?"

"You're so romantic," he huffs. "Say something else."

But his hand slides along her waist and higher, all gentle and warm and she leans back against him, closes her eyes for a second, how he's all strong and nice-smelling against her. He presses an absent-minded kiss to her temple. She laughs. "How's this for romantic? If Ed or Sam or god forbid, Boss, walks in here before we're done, I'm going to have to quit my job and go live in Nunavut. Get a job as a cocktail waitress." She pauses. "Do they have a need for cocktail waitresses up there?"

"Mm, I might come with you if you'll be wearing one of those little skirts-" he starts, snickering and she's pretty sure it's the ridiculous euphoria of not waiting until they got home (which, if anyone was wondering, also has its merits. Just. Not on nights like tonight, clearly).

She glares at him but she's also got a huge smile on her face. It's just-he's all hers to have public-bathroom-sex with and all the other kinds of good sex too and sometimes, it's the kind of thing she'd like to announce to the entire room – not that that's a thing she's actually going to do, she does after all, have some restraint. Not that you'd know it from the past ten minutes. Also, she may or may not let out a gasp when he moves her underwear aside and slides his fingers against her.

"Just in case it wasn't obvious," she pants out, "we are all a-go here."

She can feel him grinning against her skin. "All right, all right."

She hears him unbuckling his belt and she starts giggling all over again. "I can't believe we're doing this." He snorts and she raises an eyebrow when she hears him tearing something open.

"How come you don't wear dresses more often?"

She opens her mouth to offer him the snarky reply that she wears a uniform all day long, why doesn't he wear a suit more often, but all that comes out is this sort of whiny-sounding whimper, how that first slide of him inside her makes her breath catch, even now. She feels an exhale of laughter on the side of her neck, his fingers digging into her waist. "Um." She has no idea how to form an intelligent-sounding sentence right now. "I-"

He grasps her chin, kisses her until she has to pull away gasping. They are not exactly being quiet and she's torn between telling him to just get on with it and like, enjoying herself (she's pretty sure that with every second that goes by, it's looking more and more like the latter).

He's faster and rougher than he usually is with her (except if he was this fast and rough with her all the time, it's not like she'd complain so. Probably something she should really think hard about), a little bruising and she is possibly trying to keep her mouth shut against her moans but then isn't really trying that hard because past experience tells her that he's not exactly going to tell her to shut up.

His fingers slide all the way down her front, callused and warm, and he's pressing her hard into the side of the stall and it is entirely likely that she has entirely forgotten how squeamish she was at first about touching anything in the men's bathroom and she breathes in hard, all, "I'm close" and "more" and he sucks at her neck, gets his teeth against her too and that's it for her, she knocks her forehead into the stall wall letting out this moan she swears never came out of her mouth before him.

"Careful," he says breathlessly.

She thinks she mutters back something, has no idea at all if he even hears her, thinks if this were anywhere but a place where people they know could walk in, she could possibly be gearing up for a second time. Instead, she focuses on him, his breathing, how it changes when she raises her arm and tangles her fingers in his hair, laces the fingers of her other hand tightly against his. "Come on," she whispers, can already tell that he's not going to be holding out for too much longer either. Barely gets to breathe out that she loves him.

His grip tightens on her and he practically growls her name, all harsh against her skin and she shivers a little and it's like she completely forgets they're in a bathroom at all, her thoughts only about him. All she can hear is their breathing and the vague mush of voices coming from outside.

She starts laughing breathlessly, tries to keep the volume down.

He huffs against her skin. "You know, I didn't hear you laughing quite so much two and a half seconds ago."

She leans back against him, lets him press a kiss to her hair, their fingers still laced together. "We're in a _bathroom_ at _The Goose_ – I feel like this is a whole new point of low."

He turns her around, kisses her hard on the mouth. "Or awesome. Think I should just flush this?" He motions down vaguely.

And it's not like she's not grateful for the gesture, clean up is going to be about a thousand times easier but- "As opposed to doing _what_ with it? Souvenir?" She arches her eyebrow.

He snorts, pecks her cheek. "Funny."

"Did you totally plan this?" she asks suspiciously.

"Winnie, Winnie, Winnie – how could I have planned this? It was _your_ idea!" He gives her a huge grin and she tries to roll her eyes but also, she's grinning right back (and actually, if anyone's asking, possibly if they _had_ decided they were going to fool around in the car, she'd have been equally prepared. So).

"Always thinking ahead, aren't you?"

"You know, I'm pretty sure you're glad I do."

"Isn't that the truth," she says, thinks she really _is_ glad and not just because of this. "How long do you think we've been gone?" she asks, both of them doing their best to clean up in a spot where there's really no room for even one person. She tugs her dress back down, smoothes at the material.

"No idea."

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," she says disbelievingly, now that she's in charge of her faculties once more and can see what a colossally ridiculous idea the whole thing was.

He laughs at her. "Yeah? Needed a lot of convincing?

"Oh shut up," she mutters. She clears her throat. "Okay. Should I go first?"

"Sure," he says affably. "Whatever you like."

It should be a problem, the wild hair (there's no way everyone's not going to be able to tell that she didn't just have her fingers in it) and his belt still undone (her eyes stop on his forearms for a second which is stupid because everyone has them, it's just that his are so _nice_) and his eyes all bright, like _everyone_ is going to be able to tell. Thing is, she also can't bring herself to care that much about what other people can tell. She narrows her eyes at him. "This was such a bad idea."

"Terrible," he echoes still grinning at her and him looking at her like that has always made her smile stupidly hard.

She pulls him closer to her by his shirt, kisses him firmly and then gets lost for a second when he deepens it. He catches at her wrist right when she's about to slide out through the tight space between the door and the side of the stall. (Really, whose idea was this, there really just isn't enough room.) "Love you," he mutters against her mouth and she slides her fingers against his jaw, kisses him firmly.

(God, okay, his hair really is doing this thing where it's screaming, 'someone just got laid - right here!' which is just going to be beyond embarrassing in about five minutes but also, she still gets really silly whenever he does anything like pack her a lunch or bring her coffee before she's even awake. Or whenever he tells her he loves her because he always says it with that little smile, like it makes him happy and yeah. Anyhow. Not the point.)

She pushes him back into the stall, tells him to start counting before she washes her hands vigorously, tries to smooth down her own hair and get rid of the faint shimmer of sweat on her skin, opens the door of the bathroom and walks right into Ed.

"Winnie."

She clears her throat. "Um. Hi."

"You know this is the men's, right?" He's looking at her cautiously, like maybe she hasn't quite learned her letters yet.

"Yeah. I uh. I. Walked into the wrong one." Okay really. Really? Is it possible to be this bad at lying? Clearly it is.

He raises his eyebrows at her. "Really."

She figures he can probably tell her exactly what she was doing just by looking at her face and she's torn between dying of mortification and sitting down right there and laughing until she cries. "It happens?"

"Okay." He's giving her that vaguely amused look. "Maybe you should lay off the gin."

She lets out a burst of high-pitched laughter (swears she hears Spike snicker from the stall), clears her throat again and then slides around him. "Okay. Well. Um. Have a good time." She makes a face as soon as she says it, thinks she needs to stop thinking about what _she_ was just doing in the bathroom and start thinking about what _other people_ generally do in the bathroom instead.

He arches an eyebrow at her and she curses herself the whole way back to the table, drains the rest of her drink in one long swallow.

"You took a while," Jules mutters under her breath, a knowing look on her face, the light from the overhead lamp catching at the diamonds in her engagement ring.

Winnie shrugs at her. "There was a line," she says, tries not to look like her cheeks are still flushed. She glances up, catches Spike's quick grin at her before he slides back into his seat, fingers brushing against her knee. She sees Sam's eyebrows shoot up at Spike, sees Leah shake her head across the table, a long-suffering look on her face and Winnie's snickering childishly as she orders another drink.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: The very last piece to this story - if you're still with me, thank you for reading! I owe you big for following me down the garden path (here in particular but this story in general). And the last time I'll get to say this: if you did anything at all in those little boxes below, possibly I owe you brownies. Nice, fat chocolate ones.

And a big thank you to Tirsh - for shamelessly encouraging me via pictures of men's clothing and for a conversation about Yoda that led me to Barry. (To say nothing about making me crack up very loudly and unattractively in public...)

Here we go.

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* * *

So here's the god's honest truth.

She can't remember the last time she actually saw Spike in a tie.

And it's-it is not a bad look, not at all. In fact, when he'd turned away from the mirror, still straightening the knot and grinned at her, asked if she was ready to go-

Well. Possibly, Winnie's mouth had dropped open and she's spent the whole time ever since thinking about getting him back upstairs.

With difficulty, she drags herself back into the conversation, Spike's childhood best friend Taylor in the seat next to her and he and Spike laughing, reminiscing about being kids and doing foolish things together (right now, it's the time they sneaked into an R-rated movie with two jumbo bags of popcorn and how they'd waited for the lights to go down before throwing the contents of both bags into the air). She wonders if she should be laughing too, thinks everyone's probably going to think that she's a deaf-mute if she keeps this up.

"I should go find my wife," Taylor says, grinning.

"Your wife has already found you," comes a teasing voice from behind them. Winnie smiles up at Brianna as she leans over the back of her new husband's chair. Taylor's whole face does something different when he looks at her. "Mike, I'm sorry to steal him away but his mother wants to talk to him. And apparently all I am now is a glorified gopher." It sounds like she's happy about it.

"Ah, you might as well take him away - I thought I'd never have to hear about it again when he finally asked you to marry him but ever since, it's been incessant questions about floral arrangements and linen colours."

"Don't pretend like you weren't enjoying it," Taylor says with an eye roll. "I've known you a long time, Mikey. I know how much you like the colour pink."

Bri snorts. "I'm sure." She shoots Spike a commiserating look. "I don't think I can get rid of him now."

"Yeah, think you're stuck," Spike says with a snicker at Taylor's insulted look.

"We'll catch up with you guys later," Taylor says, getting to his feet. He takes Bri's hand.

Winnie watches Spike, how he's completely alive in the dim light. He's smiling, watching the two of them make their way across the floor and then he turns to look at her and it's like something inside of her feels like it's been found, how happy he looks, how it makes her heart stutter its beats right in her chest.

It's funny, how years with him haven't felt the way they did with her ex, how sometimes it feels like it's been forever and yet, not long enough for it to have _been_ forever. She doesn't even know, possibly, she should lay off the wine and champagne.

(If someone had told her, all that time ago, before they were ever together, that _Spike_ would hand her the save-the-date card and then poke his head into the living room a couple weeks later and tell her that he'd just booked the hotel, and did she think he needed to wear a tie to the rehearsal dinner and that yeah, they weren't technically in the wedding party but Taylor didn't want to go to dinner with just his brother and Bri's sister – Winnie would have recommended a shrink.)

They dance and eat cake and he whispers that he loves her right in her ear before he brushes a kiss across her lips and she doesn't want to be what takes him away from this evening or anything but she also thinks that if she doesn't get his hands on her soon, she's going to explode and not in the good kind of way.

They're almost the last ones there and it's only when the lights get turned back on that she finally manages to maneuver him into an elevator. They've both had a little too much to drink, the beauty of an out-of-town wedding and hotel rooms, and he turns and kisses her, hands pressing her back into the mirrors on the walls and she thinks he could stand to be just a tiny bit rougher with her. Thinks he's probably caught up in how this kid he grew up with gazed at his new wife (Winnie kind of was too, they've all hung out before and Bri is soft and sweet in all the ways Winnie doesn't even know how to be but. She's always liked the way people in love look at each other).

It takes them the better part of ten minutes to get to their hotel room and it's not because they get lost. Spike's hands are running up and down the silk at her hips and they spend an inordinately long time against the ice machine (to the point where she thinks his fingers might have brushed against her in a way that was not exactly meant for public eyes. Also, the hallway's deserted and she doesn't care). She also has this idle thought like, this is still a thing that works between them, in addition to all the other stuff that works between them and god, how _dumb_ would she have been to give it up before ever knowing what it would really mean? Really dumb.

Anyhow.

What she's focused on here is the tie.

Has no idea what in the hell has gotten into her and the first thing she does when they finally get the door of their room open is push his jacket off his shoulders, untuck his shirt. She loosens his tie too, doesn't pull the knot out and just – so. Spike looking all dishevelled, hair wild from having her fingers in it and his belt unbuckled, eyes all dark. Definitely a thing she enjoys.

She gets her fingers under his shirt, wonders how exactly she's going to bring this up (they kind of skirted it once, Spike and handcuffs and a big resounding no because apparently, _that_ was where he drew his line and she still doesn't understand it, thinks it must have something to do with the job. Thing is, she kind of likes the idea. With him. Obviously, but you know. Only with him. Thinks it doesn't have to be cuffs, not at all).

"I think you should tie me up," she says abruptly, kisses him immediately and thinks she's being a little excessive when she tries to take his mind off what she's just asked by sliding her hand into the waistband of his pants.

He kind of freezes against her for a split second, bites off this moan and then grasps at her wrist, pushes her back gently, just a little. "What?"

She takes a deep breath, clears her throat. Okay, so possibly she could have phrased that a little better. Whatever, he's used to her by now. "I. You heard me."

He's still got that kind of flabbergasted expression on his face. (It totally makes her want to giggle but. She manages to restrain herself). "I did. I just thought that we-"

"No cuffs," she interrupts. Fingers his tie a little, clears her throat, knows that her cheeks are a little red. Shrugs up at him sheepishly.

He stares at her, tie all loose, top button undone and his hair looking like she's just had her fingers in it, clears his throat. "Winnie."

She just looks back at him. She's not scared to tell him all the things she wants and he's never actually said no to her (except possibly for that time when she was drunkenly declaring that maybe not letting dogs up on the bed was silly and why couldn't they, they were practically people and Spike had rolled his eyes at her and Dahlia and gone into the kitchen, had called out that dogs did not belong on beds. Dahl had ended up passed out in the spare room and Winnie had woken up around 3:30 still drunk, at which point, she'd stumbled into their bedroom and proceeded to wake Spike up – not that he'd minded. Plus he'd very thoughtfully left a whole pot of coffee on the kitchen table the next morning).

He huffs, reaches for her and kisses her again and she thinks he's got to be giving in, just a little and that experience is telling her that this is not a thing either one of them is going to hate. Wonders how thin the walls are.

He backs her up, gets her closer to the bed, reaches behind her and unzips the dress. She has this ridiculous thought like it's going to be wrinkled to shit and he must be thinking about other things if he's not going to stop and at least toss it over the chair and yes, she is completely transparent because she's wearing this little set for one reason and one reason only.

Thinks it does something pre-tty good to her breasts.

And also. Lacy underwear with a split, open all the way across where there's supposed to be fabric. Like, probably she's beyond transparent. Still. She likes the way he looks at her; even when she's in sweats, she likes how he looks at her. And she doesn't need a guy in her life to put on pretty lingerie but it is kind of nice to not be the only one appreciating her own efforts, is all (and there is no one on the planet who's more appreciative of her efforts than him).

"You been wearing that under there all night?"

She was stealthy getting dressed. Didn't want to ruin the effect. She shrugs like she's being off-handed, thinks she feels anything but. "Yeah?" Her mouth is already dry, already thinking about all the ways this is going to go.

He laughs, all low and she shivers, thinks he should stop holding her by her ribcage and start touching her somewhere else. "If I'd known that," he says softly in her ear, "we wouldn't have stayed downstairs so long."

Her brain stalls for a second and she kind of thinks if he'd known that, they probably wouldn't have made it up here either but, whatever, who's quibbling details? Not like they haven't done it in a public bathroom before (_once_). She sucks in a breath as his fingers wander down, brush against her. He smiles, this look like he is way too pleased about how wet she is. Also, can't beat the convenience. "Spike-"

He bites at her bottom lip and she hears herself moan and seriously, you'd think by now she'd know how to stay a little more quiet.

Her fingers are barely cooperating with her and it takes her three tries to unbutton his shirt but she gets it done, gets her hands on him, chest and stomach, muscle and skin and he's warm and possibly, her heart's jumping in her lungs which is ridiculous because she suggested this in the first place. She slides down onto her knees, tries to calm her breathing as she gets him undressed, gets her mouth on him, swallows him down into her throat because apparently _that's_ the kind of night this is and he lets her for a few minutes, hands gentle in her hair and against her jaw even as he mutters curses under his breath before he hooks his fingers under her elbows and hauls her back up to her feet, kisses his way down her neck and she thinks she gasps when he bites down, just gently, and okay, seriously, she must be the only woman in the world who complains about too much foreplay (it's just – like, can we please get to the main event here, she is just, you know, ready).

"Come on," she pants and he's got both her wrists in his hands tugging them back behind her, fingers around them just a little too tight, and she's not sure what it says exactly that she just gets this thrill of anticipation. She goes to slide her arms up around his neck and suddenly realizes just what he was doing with her wrists behind her and she's not getting out of this knot anytime soon and the fact that she didn't even realize-

Possibly, if he touches her right now, she's going right over the edge.

He backs away a little, surveys her. "Okay?" He sounds all worried like he thinks she might freak out or something.

She nods enthusiastically because it's so much more than okay that she just doesn't even _know_. "Perfect." He grins at her, gets back into her space, kisses her.

So yeah. Okay. Apparently she doesn't even need him to touch her anywhere in particular because all he does is skim his fingers over the tops of her breasts and that's it for her, presses herself against him and whimpers against his shoulder.

In her _defence_ here – the _tie_.

He looks incredibly pleased with himself and she rolls her eyes. "That wasn't you."

He laughs, hugs her tight, kisses all against her hair and cheeks. "It so was." He tugs lightly on her hands and she shivers like a crazy person. "See?" he says with a pointed eyebrow raise.

She snorts, tosses her hair but she's giggling, her skin just a little too sensitive and callused fingers just lightly brushing against her inner thigh (like. Sometimes, he's just a little too good at this. Even when she's like 'yeah, okay, stop being a tease, for god's sake, can you just touch my cl-' he always cuts her off by doing exactly that. Like he's reading her mind. Or it's all that SRU stuff, looking at all the stuff she's not saying and. Okay, anyhow. What was her point? Did she even have one? Doesn't matter).

He pushes her back lightly against the bed, gets her up against the headboard and it's not exactly easy maneuvering that at all because her hands are still behind her and she's just come from him doing, you know, nothing, so basically, she's useless and that's probably why she doesn't even really take in the fact that he's just undone the knots and reconfigured her arms, tied her to one of the posts, has her diagonally across the bed until she tugs experimentally and realizes that yeah, she's not going to be going anywhere anytime soon. And also, he knows how to tie some seriously good knots (she tries to tell herself that it's not a turn on, not at all, in fact, it's weird. But. She fails).

Spike slides his fingers down, tugs at her bra until it's not supporting anything at all and then bites at her, thumbs brushing across her breasts. Her hips press up against him and he pulls away, glares at her in a way that just makes her do it again and he leans close to her ear, "Don't make me stop you."

She freezes immediately, his tone all dangerous and knows him well enough to know that he'll just keep stopping and starting, leave her hovering at the edge (he is a gigantic fucking tease but also, she's into it which is probably _why_ he's gotten to be such a gigantic fucking tease so basically, that's all on her and she's not smirking in victory, not at all), so she swallows, licks at her lips. He runs his tongue over her breasts and she's fighting to stay still, doesn't want him to even pause and then he slides a hand down, gets his fingers inside her, thumb pressing against her and basically, she chokes and sinks her teeth into his shoulder. She's crazy turned on (so not her fault – as she said, him and that stupid tie), knows he can feel just how much, and there is a whole lot of ridiculousness flying out of her mouth, some whimpering, and it should be too much, how he gets his thumb wet too, presses too hard and too quick, until she's clenching lightly on his fingers and then he slows down and like she said, he's a huge tease. She's gasping, asking him to just please, come on, this is so not even fair because it's not like she can knock his fingers out of the way and do it herself, five seconds to victory and then he licks at the sweat running down between her breasts, kisses her, trails his mouth across her jaw to bite at her neck, picks up the pace and she just-

Well, she chokes a little, right on her own breath.

He gets her down to these trembling little after-shocks, everything all slippery and then kisses his way down her stomach and thighs, licks at her and she didn't realize how frustrating it was going to be not to be able to touch him. He gets his forearm across her hips and she can't quite get the friction she needs (thinks he probably knows that) so she's balancing on the edge of a cliff she can't quite find a way to get over and he asks her questions, asks her if he should let her, or if he should leave her all tied up and on edge, asks her a bunch of other stuff too and she's pretty much gasping out her answers, telling him anything at all that she thinks he wants to hear.

(It works though, he gets his tongue on her, uses his fingers and okay so, like she'd already established a hundred years ago, this is a _skill_ and she almost wants to know who in the hell taught him to do this because whoever it was should really get a thank you, a fruit basket or like, a nice collection of teas, especially since she's the one reaping all the benefits, how he always knows when to lick and when to, you know, bite a little and just. The point is, he has just got a really good grasp on the female anatomy and where he should concentrate his efforts, is all she's saying.

Also, he's not the kind of guy who thinks one time is satisfactory, gets her off another two times until she's a nearly-hysterical mess, no idea at all if the noise is just in her own ears or if she's actually making all of it, no clue if it's been a minute or an hour, this one long act that she can't quite keep up with, everything in her brain just a step behind what he's doing to her.)

She thinks she might be unconscious by the time she comes back into herself, sees Spike right above her, this look on his face like he's just so _pleased_ with himself and she snorts, rolls her eyes. "It was okay." She's still breathless.

"Oh yeah? Seemed a little more than okay. You know. To an outsider." He's grinning madly at her and she just-yes, all of the sex they have is still fairly fantastic, no question. But the rest of it kind of makes all the sex they have even better (she's talking about the bits where sometimes they wake up at midnight, days and nights all mixed up, shifts screwing with circadian rhythms and how she laughs like crazy whenever he says 'circadian rhythms' while they're leaning over the counter in the kitchen eating peanut butter right out of the jar.

How he bitches like anything about how her stupid reality shows are taking over the whole hard drive on the PVR but then never erases them, how he makes her laugh so hard she cries and then scoops her up and hugs her so tight she can't breathe. How he kisses her, all that focus he can put on disarming a bomb just all on her.

How he reaches for her hand when they're walking Barry and how he'd looked at her when he'd suggested they name their dog Barry. She'd, of course, rolled her eyes and said, "Like the Flash? Like his last name is Allen? What dog has a last name, Scarlatti? You're ridiculous," but he'd laughed like crazy and she'd rolled her eyes, muttered that Barry was such a ludicrous name for a dog and why not just call him Clark Kent and be done with it. Spike had kept grinning at her though and she'd rolled her eyes again before she'd reached for their new puppy, couldn't help the smile on her own face).

She laughs, sweat sliding down the middle of her stomach as she wriggles, the knot around her wrists tightening a little. "Yeah well." She lets out a satisfied breath. He's brushing his nose against her neck and she slides her legs around his waist, raises her hips a little (because yes, it apparently doesn't matter how many times he gets her off, she always wants _him_) and he presses a soft kiss against her mouth before he skims a hand down her side, gets them lined up.

She's so sensitive that everything in her tightens and she holds her breath as he eases against her slowly, all gentle with her and they both let out these soft sounds when he's finally right up against her. It's different – not being able to touch him when he's going down on her is one thing, not being able to touch him here-

Also, she doesn't care how soft or nice this tie is, she's going to have marks on her wrists, how hard she's fighting against it. It's like, all she can do is tilt her hips at him, can't pull at his hair or pull him closer to her, can't even really get the angle she wants and it's a hundred kinds of frustrating but also, it still feels _good_ so she doesn't even know. Possibly, she's insane. And it's not for lack of trying, she gets her feet on the mattress on either side of his ribs and still, she just can't quite-

He shifts, just a little and she lets out this loud exclamation, eyelids slamming shut, this spot he's suddenly hitting that is all sorts of amazing and every time he moves, she sees this flash of like, she doesn't even know what, but the point is he can definitely tell that she's close but he doesn't slide his fingers down between them, doesn't pull her hips up against him, doesn't shift them around so she can do this the way she wants. She's got her legs wrapped around him, is moving as much as she can but she can't quite move the way she needs to.

She thinks she gasps his name, has no idea if that's actually the syllable that came out of her mouth or not and she's too warm, and just before everything gets to be too much, he presses right into her like he's holding her down with his hips, sucks hard at the spot just beneath her ear and she tumbles right into him, thinks she's moaning indistinct words at him, everything too much, like it almost hurts, everything too deep and he starts moving again, hard, finishes in this sort of harsh snarl, his teeth at her throat.

She hears him groan her name, right at the end there, his voice rough.

She's breathing all heavy, everything heaving a little and he stays close to her, kisses against her cheeks and on the tip of her nose, lazy against her lips. Everything's quiet and it's a little silly but all she's aware of is him, his scent and how his thumbs are stroking lightly at her neck, hears her own moan of protest when he moves off her ribs, lets her breathe.

She feels his fingers at her wrists, gentle as the blood flows back into them and she thinks that tie's probably a write-off, how she got sweaty hands all over it, pulled and tugged until the knot dug into the underside of her wrist.

"Why haven't we done that before?" she asks breathlessly, tips her face up a little demandingly so he'll kiss her because she's too tired to roll them over and kiss him herself.

He lets out a breath of laughter before he does, all nice and slow and just when she's really starting to enjoy herself, he pulls away and then rolls his eyes, sounds all concerned. "You should see the marks on you right now. That's why I didn't want to-"

"We should do that again. Like. Soon."

"Winnie-"

It takes every single ounce of effort she has left to push herself up, tug him over so she can curl up in his arms. "Love you."

He snorts but he kisses her hair, runs his fingers over her skin and then gathers her close to him. "Love you too."

"Good thing we didn't use cuffs," she yawns. Thinks her hands are throbbing a little. Except, it kind of feels nice, which just goes to show. She hooked up with this guy and everything got totally changed around in her brain. (Doesn't really care cause it's better this way.)

"Not an option," he says, sounds sleepy. "Sure you're okay?"

"Mm. Yeah. Good." Monosyllabic – he'll be impossible to live with after this, is going to be walking around with that little smirk on his face every time he looks at her for the next week at least (she so doesn't even remotely care, thinks he can smirk at her all he wants). She feels his lips brush against her temple, thinks they should both probably move, clean up even just a little. Doesn't want to. "Um. You?"

He moves a little so he can see her, gets his hand on her jaw. "If you are, I am." Kisses her all gently and she kisses him back, ends up yawning into his mouth. He laughs, lays back down beside her. "Win?"

"Hm?"

"You ever think about getting married?"

Somewhere at the back of her brain, she thinks this should be one of those things that sets off a red alert, all those sirens like in Star Trek. But she's _so_ tired, body all exhausted and it's _late_. "Uh. Dunno. Maybe. You?"

"Dunno. Maybe." There's another long pause and she's right on the edge of sleep when he says, "Yeah."

"Yeah what?" she asks, eyes closed.

He huffs a breath of laughter against her cheek from where he's lying. "Yeah. I think about it."

It takes more effort than she'd ever admit to anyone to get her eyelids open, hesitates for a second. "Um. That's nice," she says cautiously.

"_Nice_?"

She snickers at the affronted expression on his face, shakes her head. "Sorry. I don't…I don't know what to say," she confesses. "I mean. You know. Me too."

"Yeah?" He sounds a hundred kinds of hopeful and it makes her sit up a little, lean over to kiss him, thinks about all the things she feels for him.

She pulls away, still close to him, rolls her eyes. "Yeah. Like. Obviously." She's been his since that first dinner, maybe since all the times before that, skating and movies and all those hours he spent being there for her without any kind of promise or hope.

"To you, I mean," he clarifies unnecessarily.

And even though she knew what he meant the second he mentioned it, she feels this wild leap in her stomach and for a second, every thought in her brain stalls out and she can't find anything to say.

"Win?"

"Yeah," she says, has to clear her throat. "Yeah. Me too. To you. I-you know. Only you."

He gives her this brilliant smile, makes her feel like she's standing on a pile of marshmallow fluff, all sticky and sweet and amazing and she leans up, kisses him, thinks she really could spend forever kissing him and never ever get enough of it and how, maybe, that's what all their choices have brought them to: a chance at never getting enough (it just sounds like a pretty good deal to her).


End file.
